How Hartford Became the Insurance City

As with so much about Hartford, the story begins at the Connecticut River.

The city rose to prominence in the 1700s as a river port, serving as a
conduit for goods arriving from or heading to places like England, Bermuda,
and the Far East. River captains, who met frequently on the wharves and
in coffee houses, often arranged to share voyage risks and profits. From
these informal arrangements, the Hartford insurance industry sprang, eventually
offering much more than marine coverage.

In 1794, wealthy Hartford merchant Jeremiah Wadsworth and some friends
began offering fire insurance on an informal basis. In 1810, the Connecticut
General Assembly awarded a charter to the state's first publicly owned
insurance firm, The Hartford Fire Insurance Co. The Aetna Fire Insurance
Co. opened for business nine years later. But the city's reputation as
a reliable insurer wasn't made until the calamitous New York City fires
of 1835 and 1845, when Hartford companies fulfilled their payment promises
while many others didn't.

No Connecticut company offered life insurance until 1846, at least in
part because the local clergy regarded it as immoral. That year, however,
saw the formation of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Hartford.

Insurance companies sprang up elsewhere in the U.S. during this period,
so how did Hartford end up with the moniker? Historian Ellsworth Grant
puts it this way: "The uniqueness of Hartford's companies lay in
building a solid reputation for staying solvent, keeping their promises
to pay losses, hanging on in times of disaster, and initiating new types
of insurance."

Hartford insurers were the first to offer accident, auto, and aviation
policies, among other innovations. In World War II, The Travelers helped
insure the creation of the atomic bomb. This experience led to Hartford
insurers' vital role in the development of peacetime atomic energy.